That little effort can sometimes make the difference

The first half of the two-year session of the General Assembly is in the history books. School is out and our little ones are off to various camps and learning the particulars of archery and canoeing, not to mention horse riding and campfire songs. This leaves me with a small window of reflection on my new phase of public service.

I am a confident and optimistic person by nature. However, when I went for orientation in the new role as your statehouse representative, and was confronted with the fire hose of information that was the substance of orientation, I was a little shaken. I questioned whether I would immediately be the competent, productive, public servant I was used to being. Fortunately, my delegation partners stepped in and smoothed over the ceremonial aspects, and by the time we got down to the real activity of lawmaking, my confidence was back and my focus was on doing that which you sent me there to do.

After the surprise of being appointed to judiciary committee, it became apparent that the speaker was looking to add a certain skill set to the mix, and I had the experience and the legal knowledge he was seeking to move the ethics and transparency issues from the political and appearance area into actual practice. He was familiar with what had been done in Beaufort County in that area, and what a profound beneficial impact it had on the whole governmental process.

I am, of course, disappointed we could not reform our state ethics regime immediately. It is a complex issue with many interactive moving parts. This, combined with the fact that most members initially looked at the issue as one of appearances and getting various editorial boards off their collective back. In fact, a strong ethics regime is the foundation of public confidence in government. My contribution to the conversation was to point out the positive benefits of transparency, not only in the ethics arena, but in the public access to government information as well. We turned the public around in Beaufort County. We went from general cynicism and suspicion, to a place where the folks would support county generated solutions to problems of infrastructure, pollution, or development restraints. Deserved confidence in government pays huge dividends.

I was disappointed we could not immediately reform the state Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). There was political pressure, especially with the legislative exemption, to simply wave the magic wand and make it go away. The magic wand approach has gotten us into such difficulty in the past with unintended consequences, I felt it was better in the long run to go ahead and put in the work to make our reforms congruent with existing law, instead of asking the courts to tease out our intent when these things inevitably turn up before Justice Toal. Ultimately, the deliberation went from listening to your representative (the annoying new guy) to finally seeing that the law must be coherent with itself.

Finally, we got lots of calls and emails on the Waddell renovation appropriation. It was akin to preaching to the choir, but I want as much citizen input as possible. It is the very life force of good governance. The speaker released us early on the last day of session because of Tropical Storm Andrea. Instead of striking out for home, I met with Sen. Tom Davis and made copies of the House budget page containing the Waddell renovation dollars. Before leaving, we made certain that each conference committee member had the document, as well as our commentary. In my experience, that little extra effort can sometimes make the difference.

Weston Newton represents District 120 in the South Carolina House of Representatives. His column will run monthly in Bluffton Today. He can be reached at westonnewton@hargray.com.

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